Oakland A’s muscle up on New York Yankees for come-from-behind win

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Oakland Athletics Josh Donaldson scores on Kyle Blanks ninth-inning sacrifice fly in the Athletics 7-4 victory over the New York Yankees in a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in New York, Wednesday, June 4, 2014. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Oakland Athletics third baseman Josh Donaldson, far left, second baseman Nick Punto, center, and left fielder Yoenis Cespedes celebrate their 7-4 victory over the New York Yankees in a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in New York, Wednesday, June 4, 2014. Donaldson hit the go-ahead home run and Cespedes had two solo home runs off Yankees pitching. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

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NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 4: Yoenis Cespedes #52 of the Oakland Athletics rounds second base after he hits a home run against the New York Yankees during the fourth inning in a MLB baseball game at Yankee Stadium on June 4, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 4: Ichiro Suzuki #31 of the New York Yankees steals second base as the throw gets past second baseman Nick Punto #1 of the Oakland Athletics during the sixth inning in a MLB baseball game at Yankee Stadium on June 4, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 4: Yoenis Cespedes #52 of the Oakland Athletics hits a home run against the New York Yankees during the sixth inning in a MLB baseball game at Yankee Stadium on June 4, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

NEW YORK — They can hit. They can catch. They can pitch. And, yes, they can win, as the A’s did for the fifth consecutive game Wednesday, rallying to upend the Yankees in the Bronx 7-4.

The A’s may not be the world’s most complete team. But they’ll do until somebody comes along who can do it better.

The one thing the A’s haven’t had to do much this year is to come back from a big deficit. Wednesday saw Jesse Chavez give up four runs in the third, but he came back to throw three more innings without allowing a run, creating space so the offense could rally.

“With these hitters,” Chavez said, “you know that it’s mostly just a matter of time.”

It was the first comeback from four runs down for the A’s this season.

“That’s an attribute a good team has,” manager Bob Melvin said. “You get down in this ballpark early, and you haven’t gotten too many good swings, but they know how to pass the baton.”

Oakland hit three more homers, which is impressive because the A’s have homered in a dozen consecutive games, a total of 22 bombs in all. Yoenis Cespedes hit two in helping the A’s rally from a 4-0 deficit and Josh Donaldson hit one that broke a 4-all tie and gave the A’s a lead they never lost in the seventh.

Both men are proving to be built for the big stage. After the fourth multiple-homer game of his career, Cespedes said he likes playing when he knows everyone’s watching.

“When it’s a full house and it’s sold out, I like to play like that,” Cespedes said through interpreter Ariel Prieto. He hit a solo homer off starter Vidal Nuno in the fourth just moments after Chavez gave up his four-spot. Cespedes then homered again in the sixth, this one off reliever Matt Daley, to get the A’s close, down 4-3.

Equally impressive, though, were warning track sacrifice flies from Jed Lowrie in the fifth and Alberto Callaspo in the sixth that sandwiched Cespedes’ second homer. Both were only a few feet from clearing the wall, but each produced a run that helped the A’s catch up. And both came after long at-bats that were wearing on the Yankees, seven pitches for Lowrie, nine for Callaspo.

Then Donaldson stepped in against Yankees rookie Jose Ramirez, whose major league debut was ruined by the A’s third baseman delivering his 16th homer to snap the tie.

“Having a big stage like (Yankee Stadium) makes it a little easier to come here, not that it’s hard to come here,” Donaldson said. “But you never have to fight to get adrenaline when you play here.”

And once the A’s had the lead, relievers Dan Otero and Sean Doolittle beat back any attempt at a Yankee comeback. Otero pitched out of a two-out jam in the seventh, then threw a quiet eighth before Doolittle made quick work of the Yankees in the ninth.

“I think we all do (like the big stage),” Doolittle said. “We play like we’ve got something to prove, like we’ve got a chip on our shoulders. We’re not a team that gets a ton of national attention. So when we get a chance to play the Yankees, we come out and answer the call.”

Truth be told, it seems the A’s answer the call against just about everybody else, too. With the exception of getting swept in Toronto on May 23-25, Oakland has been on a roll, winning six of its past seven three-game series and splitting a four-game set with the Tigers. The end result is a 37-22 record that has the A’s 15 games over .500 for the first time this year and owning the best record in the American League.

The A’s appear willing to trade one-time closer Jim Johnson. Multiple sources have confirmed Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal’s original tweet that the A’s had offered Johnson in trade after failing to trade him to Miami over the weekend. To get a trade done, the A’s apparently are willing to eat most of the remaining salary owed Johnson, who is being paid $10 million this year by Oakland, his first year on the West Coast after back-to-back 50-save seasons for Baltimore the past two seasons. Asked about it before Wednesday’s game, Johnson, 2-3 with a 6.65 ERA and no longer the closer, said “I don’t know anything about it” and indicated he was just thinking about the game against the Yankees.

Coco Crisp, his neck still giving him problems, got the night off. In his stead, Craig Gentry made one of the A’s best defensive plays of the year, catching a Brett Gardner fly ball in left-center after a long run and a full-out dive.